The commercial marketability of various types of beans largely depends on the ability to expeditiously and economically separate the beans from the pods. A number of patents address this problem including U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,621,572 and 4,680,192. In addition, a number of methods using an apparatus to blanch and peel the skin from nuts such as almonds, are available. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 59,324; 1,350,506; 1,623,739 and 2,433,730. However, for some beans, it is also desirable to remove the seed membrane from the edible seed and further, if so desired, to split the seed into its two component halves without incurring physical damage to these components in the process. To date, the conventional practice has been to manually remove the seed membrane from the seed and then split the seed using knives or the like, a process which is labor-intensive and time-consuming.